| 释义 |
potato-ring
A recent fanciful appellation for Irish dish-rings of the 18th c., now collected as objects of virtu.
The dish-ring was a hoop of silver, often elaborately chased, or adorned with pierced and repoussé work, used as a stand for a circular bowl or the like; in use c 1750–1800. The appellation ‘potato-ring’ is due to the suggestion or unfounded notion that the hoop was used to keep together a heap of potatoes in the middle of the dinner-table.
1893Times 9 June 10/4 A number of old Irish potato-rings—one pierced with cage-pattern—45s per oz. 1901Chambers's Jrnl. Feb. 103/2 Old Irish potato⁓rings are also much sought after by collectors; at recent sales they have sold for nearly {pstlg}5 an ounce. 1906Macm. Mag. Dec. 121 Two candles, in early Hanoverian candle⁓sticks, lit up the celebrated potato-ring in the centre of the table. 1907Daily Chron. 1 June 4/5 Upon the tables were immense silver baskets and old silver potato rings filled with pink and red carnations. 1932Times Lit. Suppl. 12 May 350/4 Certain characteristic features of Irish silver, notably the so-called ‘potato’ rings made in large numbers in Dublin from about 1760 to 1820. 1960H. Hayward Antique Coll. 98/1 ‘Potato ring’... Circular silver dish or bowl stand with straight or incurved sides usually pierced and chased with pastoral or classical motifs. 1968Canad. Antiques Collector Sept. 22/1 Delicate piercing [of silverware] might be suited to cake baskets, the so-called ‘potato’ rings, bottle coasters or the gallery of a tray. 1973Country Life 8 Mar. 608/2 Irish Silver in the Rococo Period will..get out of his [sc. the average Englishman's] head that so-called potato rings have anything to do with potatoes... The fact is that such things are dish rings. |